This year Good Night Advance sponsored Zee Gaurav Awards were presented in a different manner. First they announced the nominations a week before the actual awards ceremony and yesterday 26th February, in a glittering function at Bhavan’s College Ground , Mumbai, the actual awards were presented in front of the big gathering of invitees.

The function began in a traditional style with a Palakhi where the performers danced in a typical Varkari style. Perhaps a glimpse of their popular reality show ‘Marathi Paul Padate Pudhe’. Thereafter it was the entry of the Anchors- Swapnil Joshi and Pushkar Shotri on bicycles. Their timely gimmicks supported by entertainment programmes such as Satire presented by Makarand Anaspure and Kishore Kadam and company throwing light on ongoing corruption in the country and dance performances by popular artistes from Marathi, added that required flavour to the function.

The entertainment programme during the first 90 minutes was good, but in the later half with the same team of ‘satire’ repeating the farce and too much of Bollywood dances and music only gave an indication that the organizers were more keen on pleasing a particular section of invitees. Absence of popular Musicians Ajay-Atul was felt. In the second half, many award winners were absent and it was not known, who was receiving the awards on their behalf. ‘The show must go on’ seems to be the attitude of the award winners from Drama section, as they could not cancel their shows to receive the awards. In the film awards section, there were few surprises; but the choice of three great personalities for the Life Time achievement awards was perfect.

Prof. Madhukar Toradmal honoured for his contribution to Marathi stage, Mr. Arun Kakade, for keeping alive the experimental theatre through his group ‘Aavishkar’ and Veteran master of film editing M.S. Shinde for his outstanding work in Cinema. The three grand old men were felicitated by Ms. Sulbha Deshpande , Mr. Mohan Agashe and Mr. Ramesh Deo respectively. Dr. Jabbar Patel and Mr. N. Chandra who were the guests of honour spoke about the great contribution of each of them to their respective field.

In an emotion filled scene Mr. N. Chandra held the hands of Mr. M.S. Shinde into his hands and kissed them, calling it a great moment for him. Incidentally, Mr. Shinde who has edited about 100 films including the masterpiece ‘Sholay’ and had won the filmfare award( Only award to be won by that film) was unwell recently and MNS had handed over a sum of Rs. 51,000/- to him for his treatment, since he lived in a dire state in a small room in Dharavi. His felicitation was therefore timely, but don’t know whether any financial help accompanied along with the award. Popular Cinematographer Mahesh Limaye was presented with an award called ‘Marathi Paul Padate Pudhe’ for his progress in Bollywood, after capturing with his lenses some good Marathi films.

In their respective emotion filled speeches both Mr. Toradmal and Mr. Kakade thanked their fans for their support. Mr. Toradmal is spending his time in writing now, while Mr. Kakade is still a driving force behind new young artistes of experimental theatre. As regards revealing the names of the final winners, MMW does not believe in taking away the interest of our viewers, who will be watching the telecast of this programme on Zee Marathi on Sunday 13th March 2011, at 7.30 PM.